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A major literary figure indeed and yet in an Irish context elusive in comparision to others of his generation. Very urbane by no means remote with no fear of going outside the box. I suppose Louis will be seen as a member of the Auden circle but he had huge respect outside any bracket. He lived a full life with a huge output fitting in well at the BBC as well as in America. There was no lack of ambition in Louis's scope or scale of subject matter with deep honesty shining through. From the literary angle of 2016 one could indeed find other Irish poets who drew from the Auden well. The complex Irish political situation is seen in the gaps between a Thomas Kinsella Sean O' Riordain Michael Longley and Seamus Deane. When the sixties generation of southern poets sought a mentor they turned to Patrick Kavanagh whose influence was major. Then later when the northern poets sought a mentor they cited Louis McNiece. Deane and O' Riordain will not be as well known as McNiece but Yale U Press has published fresh translations of his work. Eavan Boland could be considered the best known Irish female poet but is younger than the poets mentioned on here. Kavanagh's impact on poets for good or ill cannot be ignored but may have waned with time. Louis did not live to see the worst decades of the political violence as did the other poets who with the exception of Sean O' Riordain and Patrick Kavanagh are all still with us. Dylan Thomas and Louis McNiece would have got on well as fellow spirits and men of the world. One of the problems in relation to the term "the Northern Irish poets" is the lack of a big tent anthology of 20th century work. This would present many worthy writers often ignored in small tent editing modes leaving yawning gaps. Neglect is part of any literary culture but to see McNiece in an Irish context would be very worthwhile. All of us know McNiece's global peers but very few know his Irish peers up to his death in 1963. The same could be applied to WB Yeats' generation or indeed Samuel Beckett's or James Joyce's peers. If there is anybody seeking a worthy project one could cast an eye and ear at Louis McNiece? sc Turn that frown upside down On Tuesday, 2 August 2016, Jamie McKendrick <[log in to unmask]> wrote: Another key figure whose work spans this period is Louis MacNeice - Autumn Sequel 1954...The Burning Perch 1963. (Apparently he organised memorials for Thomas's death and tried to collect money to help the family.) Belfast born, he shares something of that outsiderishness with regards to metropolitan culture. The inventive richness of language predates elements in Thomas and could be fruitfully set beside it. Perhaps John has already done this! Jamie On 2 Aug 2016, at 10:09, Peter Riley <[log in to unmask]> wrote: If I were constructing a course like this, David (and the world is no doubt grateful that I'm not) I wouldn't feel obliged to make any more than passing reference to the so-called Movement, and certainly not to claim that that pseudo-group in any way *was* the 1950s. When you think of the British poets who were active right through that decade, which includes Graham , Moore, Gascoyne, Bunting, Rafferty, Jones, FT Prince,.... dozens of them/ not to mention those who were well started by 1955. -- Tomlinson, Fisher, Hill, Silkin, Middleton... I don't see why that bunch of grimly rationalist and empiricist poetasters (in which I include Larkin) should be allowed to take over the whole decade, except in PR terms. I don't know if your remit includes Scotland and Ireland but if it does there is even less reason to let that particularly mean-spirited mood-mongering represent ten years of creative activity in poetry. For Scotland the "Movement" is as nothing. I'm sure there will be objections to this concerning "the times". But it seems to be now considered perfectly all right to forget completely poets of the 1910-20s such as Lascelles Abercrombie, de la Mare, Laurence Binyon, Masefield, Osbert Sitwell, Humbert Wolfe, John Davidson ... who no doubt represented "the times" as much as anyone else. This is all off the top of my head and there will be errors. Wouldn't it be a good idea to try not to think in terms of decades and movements or schools? The Movement was in rebellion not just against 1940s Modernism, but against Percy Bysshe Shelley and poetical effusion itself, was it not? Pr On 1 Aug 2016, at 22:57, David Latane wrote: "I dunno David - the Movement's pretty thin gruel to offer students as representative of this whole period. Likely to switch off interest in British poetry forever. Offering the individuals - Bunting, Larkin, Gunn, Hughes, even Hill (though no doubt a less conventional list could easily be assembled) might be much more engaging." Jamie It's a way into Larkin and the mood of the postwar period--that is, a feeling that the gruel was indeed thin--the next thing on the syllabus will be a viewing of the original Seven UP television show from 1963. David Latané